{"id":4812,"date":"2021-09-19T08:44:29","date_gmt":"2021-09-19T15:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/?p=4812"},"modified":"2021-09-19T08:44:29","modified_gmt":"2021-09-19T15:44:29","slug":"the-psychic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/archives\/4812","title":{"rendered":"The Psychic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Twenty-five years ago, when I was forty-seven and living in Berkeley, I had a three-month relationship with a woman who lived in Los Angeles. In the course of our brief liaison, I made two trips to LA and she made a few trips to Berkeley, and at some point I asked her, \u201cHave you ever been in therapy?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have three good friends\nwho are therapists who talk to me<\/em>\nabout their problems,\u201d she replied, \u201cso I\u2019m not drawn to therapy. But I do go\nto a psychic and he\u2019s incredibly helpful in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the way of therapy?\u201d I asked,\ndoubtfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s\ngreat. In fact, you should have a session with him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never having gone to a\npsychic, the next time I was in Los Angeles I went to see the guy. I was\nexpecting a smooth operator, either a shyster or a wannabe shaman. His house\nwas in a woodsy neighborhood in the middle of the LA sprawl. When I arrived at\nhis place there was a hawk circling above his beautiful adobe house, keening. What\nwas the raptor trying to tell me? Get the\nhell outta here?<\/em> Welcome to the\nmystic<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d been instructed to go\ninto the adjoining studio and wait for the guy, so I did. The place was\ngorgeous, white walls, an old table center room, a well-used Rider-Waite tarot\ndeck on the table, two chairs, arch-topped windows built into the adobe, and\nseveral shelves of fantastic crystals. Seeing all this, I expected the guy to\nhave long brown hair and a deep voice and a hawk feather in a psychedelic\nheadband.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, in comes a wiry\nguy in an old sweatshirt and baggy trousers, short gray hair, barefoot, brusque,\nBrooklyn accent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHey,\u201d he says, shaking my\nhand. \u201cTodd, right?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLarry. Sit down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m a friend of Renee\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He nods. \u201cSo\u2026 you here about\nanything in particular?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo. I\u2019ve never been to a\npsychic and Renee said you were great, so\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood,\u201d he says, nodding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We sit across from each\nother at the table and he gives me a long look, and while he\u2019s looking I say, \u201cGorgeous\ncrystals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He glances at the shelves.\n\u201cYeah, people gave me those. I was never into rocks, but one client brought me\nthat big amethyst chunk and another client saw it and brought me that giant\nquartz crystal and the rest followed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI carry rocks,\u201d I say,\nliking him despite his tough guy persona. \u201cHave since I was a little kid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh yeah?\u201d he says, his\neyes twinkling. \u201cYou got one on you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlways,\u201d I say, taking the\ntwo rocks out of my pockets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hand him the rocks and he\nlooks them over, hands one back to me and keeps the round one, white quartz in\ngray stone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can do the reading from\nthis one,\u201d he says, studying the rock. \u201cOr we can use the cards. They\u2019ll both\nget us to the same place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh then from the rock,\u201d I\nsay, amused and curious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He holds the rock for a\nmoment, sets it on top of the tarot deck and closes his eyes. \u201cWhen you were\nfive? Four? Five. Your mother placed you as a shield between her and your\nfather. She wanted you to protect her from him, and she kept you there\u2026 \u201c He\nopens his eyes. \u201cA long time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I gasped, not because he\nhad reiterated something I\u2019d learned in therapy, but because he\u2019d given me a\nhugely important missing puzzle piece in the story of my entanglement with my\nmother and my father\u2019s extreme antipathy toward me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf course that was way too\nmuch to ask of a little kid, to protect his mother from his father, but that\u2019s\nwhat she asked you to do. And you did the best you could, but of course it was\nimpossible, and the impossibility shaped your life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ceased to doubt him and\nlistened in amazement to his remarkably accurate description of me in the\nworld, though he never asked for any information about me. Near the end of the hour-long\nreading, he handed me my rock and spread the tarot deck face down in a fan on\nthe table. \u201cPick a card.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I picked The Magician.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo this is you,\u201d he says,\nlooking at the card and nodding, \u201cwhich is not surprising. I knew when I walked\nin here you were psychic. Are you aware of this?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo. I\u2019m aware of being\nintuitive, but\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is not guessing, this\nis knowing,\u201d he says simply. \u201cYou\u2019ll be with people and without knowing how you\nknow, you\u2019ll know things about them they aren\u2019t aware of or are keeping secret.\nRing a bell?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKind of,\u201d I say, thinking\nof times when this might have been true. \u201cAnd I\u2019m a writer. The stories come to\nme unbidden. I don\u2019t make them up. Not consciously.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s different, though it\u2019s\nprobably related. I don\u2019t know. And now our time is almost up. Anything you\nwant to ask me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, this tarot card. The\nMagician. How is he me? Or how am I him?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a powerful person.\nYou have unlimited potential, and your work in this lifetime could<\/em> be some kind of connecting the\nphysical world, so-called reality, with the spiritual world. And my guess is\nyou\u2019re mostly unaware of this unless\u2026\u201d He squints at me. \u201cYou a musician?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo maybe you know a little\nabout it from that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd how does one\u2026 how do I\naccess my power and potential?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d he shrugs.\n\u201cI\u2019m not a therapist. I just tell you what I see.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

fin<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Magician<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twenty-five years ago, when I was forty-seven and living in Berkeley, I had a three-month relationship with a woman who lived in Los Angeles. In the course of our brief liaison, I made two trips to LA and she made a few trips to Berkeley, and at some point I asked her, \u201cHave you ever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6997,6995,4305,6996],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4812"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4812"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4814,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4812\/revisions\/4814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}